Prologue

There is a Chinese saying that goes: you are born, get old, get sick and die. (生, 老, 病, 死) and though, I did not know of this saying until adulthood, but this is generally what I have believed to be true.

I do not believe in any kind of deity, I never did. I doubted the existence of any sort of afterlife. I was taught the principles of it, like most of this world's population, but I never did have it in me to believe it.

The existence of an almighty presence, the prospects of life after death and eternal punishment never seemed to ring true in my head. Granted, my culture and country was hardly what you would call very religious. The only times people went to church was at weddings, baptisms, confirmations and funerals but only because it was tradition. All of that was dwindling in my time; people were slowly abandoning the parts of our culture that did not fit their modern lifestyle. In fact, there has never been fewer members of the Church, than there was when I di-…before this and said number was steadily falling.

So to say, I was surprised to find myself aware, if not awake; after I had most likely died, would be an extreme understatement.

For a long while, I refused to think about it, to acknowledge what had happened to me. Wherever I was, it was warm, quiet and safe. Therefore, I took advantage and just floated. I slept and rested as I had always longed to do when I was ali-…before this.

I don't know what happened, don't ask me to explain any of this madness for truly, I cannot.

One moment from the other, I went from blissful nothingness to sitting sprawled on a wooden floor, playing with some strange toy in the form of a tiger. I just blinked and there I was.

Let me tell you, this reincarnation or rebirth thing is not something you wanna mess with. I thought everything supposed to just end. Nevertheless, it didn't. I must have done something goddamn horrible to have acquired the amount of bad karma this would take.

Because I ended up in a freaking fictional universe. A universe with a story I had followed on and off, a bit annoyed by how long and drawn-out it was. You guessed right. I'd woken up in the fucking Naruto-verse.

Something must really have it out for me.

It was rather strange. The nine-months-old baby that had only minutes before happily been playing on the floor, blubbering nonsense words to herself in whatever language toddlers speak had suddenly gone quiet. Too quiet. The wooden tiger toy was dropped carelessly onto the floor with a loud bump and the tiny form was watching her hands, turning them over and examining them as if she had never seen them before, as if they were totally alien to her.

The black-haired woman in the elaborate robes watched her normally happy and non-fussing offspring with concern for a moment before said child started wailing.

I stared at the hands in front of me. Turned them over once, twice and third time, flexing the fingers curiously. This could not be my hands. I do not have such tiny hands. These were the hands of a child. More than eight years had passed since I had last been a child. I clenched the tiny hand into a fist and had to accept that it did indeed seem to be my hand. It responded to the instructions my brain sent them, at least.

I was apparently a child again. After acknowledging this, I did what any sane person would do. I screamed. And suddenly found myself being picked up and patted on the back. The one who had picked me up made urgent shushing noises. "Shizukani, musume." The woman murmured something in low tone, as if she too was supposed to be quiet. But she wasn't speaking either English, German or Danish, no she was speaking Japanese. What little Japanese I knew was from back when I was an awkward seventh-grader. Reading Manga, watching anime, doing karate and taking courses online for when I could travel there. The question of where I was had now somewhat been answered but many others were not. Who was this woman? Was she my mother? Alternatively, maybe my babysitter? What was my name? What in the world had happened after that event? How old am I now? Why me?

The woman did turn out to be my mother. Or whoever's-body-I-now-inhabited mother. I gathered this from how she spoke of herself to me as 'Mother' in third person.

I also gathered that she was a prostitute, but not just any prostitute. No run-of-the-mill prostitute would dress as richly, nor would they enjoy the privileges Mother did. My only sources of information were my mother's kamuro and whatever scrolls or books Mother gifted me. Since I had no written texts on the workings of the so-called 'floating world', I not-so-subtly asked Kochô and she hesitated, watching me sceptically before giving in and explaining to me the hierarchy of the whore house. There are five ranks of high-class prostitutes, but only the upper three were actually oiran. You could liken them to idols of a kind, famous. One did not simply become an oiran, it took years of education, a certain level of intelligence, extraordinary beauty, elegance and manners - not to mention the cutthroat ruthlessness you needed to stay on top.

The highest ranking courtesans were the Yobidashi chûsan (呼出昼三) who were the most expensive of company and had to be hired via a private appointment. That took connections, influence and a magnitude of wealth. Only nobility, state officials and the elite of the elite shinobi ever even got to see their faces.

Chûsan (昼三) were the second highest ranking, cost the same as a yobidashi chûsan but could be hired without private appointments as they were typically put on display in the front room of a teahouse. They also had rooms of their own, not as big as their superior did, but rooms of their own nonetheless. Everyone else had to share or use the rooms meant only for 'business'.

Tsukemawashi (付け廻し) were the lowest ranking oiran and could be hired without appointment at all and cost slightly less than a Chûsan. A wealthy merchant or B-rank shinobi who'd had a good run of missions were the usual clientel for these courtesans. Once in a blue moon, a commoner saved up enough to buy a night with one of them. However no matter how much money a man of such low social status offered, he would not be able to buy any courtesan of higher rank than a tsukemawashi. They were privilege in themselves.

My mother belonged to the highest rank, the most senior of the working girls in the Tomitaya, the name of the brothel to which we all belonged. She was a woman that only men of a certain status could even dream of having and I…was an accident between her and one of those esteemed customers. Also an extremely well-guarded secret. Not even mother's apprentices – her shinzo, her kamuro – knew of my existence. Only the two child attendants knew of me. They never addressed me by my name, just in case anyone should have overheard them talking about me and become suspicious; to them I was only 'little sister', something they could easily explain away as another attendant with whom they had a sisterly bond. And even though her girls, Hatsune and Kochô, were status symbols and usually would be running errands or frolicking about the district acting as my mother's eyes and ears, Mother often left them behind in her apartments to keep an eye on me.

I'm not exactly sure what happened or how she did it. However, the woman who was now my mother had somehow managed to hide her pregnancy from the brothel-owner, the customers and the other women, her so-called 'sisters'. She had managed to hide said child even after it's birth. As one of the higher-ranking oiran in the brothel, she had a private room and an anteroom in which she would receive her customers. Mother had been unwilling to get rid of the fetus growing within her for some reason. I don't know what said reason is yet, but I am determined to find out. Where the child that I was supposed to be went, I have no idea and I am afraid to ponder this question seriously. The implications are far too horrible to consider, the guilt that I would have to carry much too heavy.

The child, that was now me, was named Chikage, 'chi' for wisdom and 'kage' for shadow. It was intended as a wish for me. That I be wise and clever, but unseen and invisible like a shadow. That I remained secret and thus safe.

The original plan was that she would hide me in her rooms until I became old enough to become a kamuro. Mother would pretend to have found me, and could from there play the generous, virtuous whore and take the 'poor orphan child' i.e me in like one of her own. I would be safe then. The brothel-owner could then contract me for my years as a kamuro and when that contract ran out, mother would ensure that a new one would not be drawn up and I would be free, and not destined to follow in her footsteps. Mother despised her profession, despised the men who paid for access to her body and the people who sold her as if she was merchandise and not a person.

See, mother's parents had been poor farmers, unable to feed her or themselves and in the end simply contracted for her to work at the brothel for four years as a servant, but not a prostitute. The brothel-owner had waited all of eight months before he'd started selling her to men with a taste for child flesh. No one had been there to ensure that her contract was upheld, but mother would be there for me.

I spent my days in her rooms: playing Otadame – a kind of juggling game – with Hatsune and having Kochô teach me to read as mother had once taught her. I would hide behind a dark, ornately decorated folding screen whenever mother received customers or when others entered her rooms, which was rare but happened occasionally.

All of three years passed like so. I did not yet know where I was, but I knew was not in the 21st century anymore and certainly not in the West. By my first name day, I had already resigned myself to the fact that I was never going home. I was never seeing my baby sisters or my parents again. I was probably never going to become a lawyer and go to University as I had been planning before the accident. Oh yes, you should probably know that by this time I had also acknowledged that either I was dead, in a coma or insane. I had resigned myself to fact that there was nothing I could do but try to live. If considering the magnitude of the accident that happened before all of this, the most probable option was that I had died.

I had been quick in learning the language, both reading and writing - although my brushstrokes were clumsy and block-like still, as my fingers weren't quite dexterous enough to handle them efficiently. Despite the fact that I could, I did not speak much. I must have seemed such an awkward, introverted child. I was hesitant to touch others, even mother. I rarely sought physical affection as it felt..improper? to even touch this regal, elegant lady who seemed more like a noblewoman than a prostitute. I had a hard time seeing her as my mother, not only because of her regal demeanour; also because it felt like a betrayal of the one I had left behind. To make it worse, I never begged for toys or fancier clothes, the only things I ever asked for was more texts to read. Luckily, no one found it strange that mother ordered so many books. Because Mother had been named for her scholarly composition, as she too had been avid in her love of literature, when she was a kamuro and receiving education from the elder sister that she had belonged to. Usually it was poetry, mythology, few history books, and a single scroll on the subkject of medical ninjutsu. The latter had been much too advanced reading for me, and sadly I had not gleaned much from it - I had read something about chakra and dismissed it as useless.

Ironically it was when I used accidentally used chakra that everything seemed to fall apart.

Someone, a male client, had not been giving Mother the treatment she was due. He had been violent and rough in his treatment of her and the sounds she made were not like usual. I had spent enough time listening to mother receiving clients to know separate sounds of pleasure and of pain. Mother's sounds were not faked nor were they those of pleasure. I was concerned, so I snuck a peek from behind the folding screen, even though I am not supposed to. I looked only to see the man on top of her, his hands around her neck. I didn't know what to do. For what felt like an eternity I stared, paralyzed by the shock. Knowing that screaming, calling for help was out of the question, I did not what to do. But the man, the horrible and evil man was killing the woman who had cared for me so well despite my reservation.

Not thinking clearly, I ran from my hiding place for the first time in my life and jumped onto the disgusting man's back. Beating my hands against uselessly his shoulders and neck, biting with all the strength of my milk teeth into the top of his ear. Kept biting until blood filled my mouth and I almost emptied my stomch in revulsion, but ended up swallowing the blood along with the bile. He roared like a feral beast and grasped my arm, effectively using it to throw me across the room. I slammed into the sliding door with clatter and fell onto the floor ; wheezing, whining and holding the back of my head.

I was not a heavy child nor a tall one. I was not stupid enough to think that I posed any actual danger to a full-grown man, being as I was only four years old and thin like a bamboo shoot. But I proved to be enough of a bother to distract the client from his fatal pursuit and thus allowed my mother to escape his hold.

He followed me and Mother scrambled on hands and knees out the room, yelling for the guards to come and to fucking hurry. She actually cursed. Mother never cursed, or spoke crudely in my presence; she was much too cultured and refined for such boorish behavior. "This little bitch is just asking for it too! Were you jealous of your elder sister, you little shit?" The boar-man sneered and I crab-crawled backwards up against the wall as he loomed over me, even if still on his knees.

I cannot say that I did not cry and whimper every time he brought his fists down on me. Because I did. But I thought for sure, that the guards would never reach us in time. I would be long dead by the time this barbarian was apprehended. That fear unlocked something in me. It felt like warmth in the pit of my stomach, it felt like strength and it felt like power. When he ripped open my kimono, I shrieked and did something? I'm not sure what or how. But when I grasped the silver kanzashi in my hair : lone those that Mother wore a wealth of in her elaborate hairstyles, that she had used as a substitute rattle to amuse me when I was but a baby. With all of my strength, which would not have been a lot without the instinctual use of chakra to reinforce my own strength, into his neck – it went in like hot knife in butter. Warm liquid spurted onto my face, in my eyes and onto my hands as the boar-man gurgled helplessly in the blood that was drowning him. It seemed I had succeeded in clipping the major artery. Have you ever seen one of the heavy silver kanzashi oiran wear? It is practically a weapon in itself, somewhat heavy and they wear at least a dozen every day.

It was only then that the brothel guards came running into the room, armed and furious that their prized courtesan and main source income had been threatened. To say they were surprised to see the sight that greeted them, would be a gross understatement. The previously immaculate and elegant room looked like a massacre had taken place; expensive furniture was smashed, a sliding screem was ruined, there was blood on the wall and the floor. In the middle of the mass, lay the naked perpetrator - rapidly bleeding out.

I had managed to drag my aching body back behind the folding screen in time. I don't know how but I managed to stifle my sobs with my tiny fist as other courtesans, their clients (some actually brandishing weapons, Hatsune later informed me) and the brothel-owner came to look inspect what in the world had caused such a ruckus.

Fortunately, Mother was not punished for killing her client. The blue and purple bruises on her neck were proof enough that whatever she had done, it had been self-defense. Her regulars booked several appointments to come check up on her and her fame became even more widespread. It became like a proof of manhood, of courage to hire Mother's services. Many a sheltered nobleman's son wanted to see who this fierce woman was, and even shinobi and samurai came to pay for her time and body. The young noblemen did it for the thrill of danger, while the warriors did it more out of morbid curiosity.

So it wasn't all that strange when a certain lecherous shinobi booked a private appointment with Mother, to check up on this woman whom he'd bedded several years before and was now nicknamed 'Bloody Karauta' for the carnage that had been her room. It was even less strange since said woman bribed an elderly woman to send a secret and urgent letter to Konoha's administration, asking for him. Him being Jiraiya of the Sannin.